I forgot to mention the other email I received on Friday -- actually, it's the one that sort of triggered the "HELP!" post -- from my long-time friend TJ (she was witness at my wedding).

Subject: Important knitting question

I so love that it was important. It still makes me smile.

TJ had given someone a "knitting starter" set -- needles, yarn, a book -- and that person was having a hard time understanding the directions for casting on. Distance was a factor, so she couldn't just run over and cozy up on the couch next to her friend for a demonstration. She'd been trying to find a video to share and -- I love how she put it:

I've gone online to see if there are some videos out there that are any good. The ones I saw were... oh... so... boring. Do you know of anything out there that would be clear and somewhat captivating?

I've really only watched knitting videos a few times, when I needed help with a special technique. There are some really bad ones, aren't there?

Comments

I really like The Knit Witch's videos for when I need help figuring something out. They aren't the best quality always but she's clear and it's easy to see what she's doing. Here are all her videos: http://knitwitch.com/videos.htm.

I understand this totally, as a knitter all my life I have just started to learn to crochet and the instructions in books are quite confusing so I went online to watch a few videos on how to crochet ... but there are some good, some bad and some ugly!!

I think you hit on the best ones. My pet peeve are the five-minute videos that spend the first four minutes and thirty seconds waving the needles and yarn around in front of the camera while the *teacher* rambles on about how EASY this is and how USEFUL it is and how QUICKLY it works up, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseum. Just show me how to do it, dammit!

I like Liat Gat's KnitFreedom videos. Some are available free on youtube, others are for a really reasonable fee. Camera work is close up, easy to see, and she demonstrates several times in each video.

For online video classes, I recommend www.craftsy.com . You have to pay, but you get access to the class forever. They are always offering discounts on Facebook and their newsletters. I have taken a few of the classes and really liked it. Especially the high definition videos. I think I might take the Free Motion Quilting Class next.

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